Friday, April 22, 2005

Woman Tells of Love Gifts

April 22, 1947Los Angeles

Deposed in the office of Attorney Paul Overtorf, newlywed Mrs. Dorothy Evelyn Burks Stoner, 25, denied the claims of cosmetics manufacturer Andrew Norman, 60, that she had relieved him of a $75,000 home and $25,000 in jewels by means of “female arts.” Why, she had been anxious to marry the gentleman, if he would only divorce his wife.

Mrs. Stoner painted a picture of a relationship that commenced in 1943 and continued until September 1946, when the pair went to Las Vegas to attend the wedding of mutual friends. Inflamed by the matrimonial urge, and wearing the seven-karat diamond engagement ring Norman had given her before a June visit to her family in Kansas, Miss Burks spent some evening hours unloading her woes into the friendly ears of C. Earl Stoner, automobile distributor and acquaintance, whom she encountered in a Las Vegas café. On their return to Los Angeles, Burks and Stoner continued the conversation, and two weeks later they were wed.

As for that house at 348 Homewood in Brentwood? A gift from Mr. Norman, made sometime between March and June, as scant compensation for a lass who was wasting her fertility on a stubborn old goat who wouldn’t give her the home and children she craved. Oh, sorry, I meant to say, “I loved him like a father,” as stated by Mrs. Stoner in deposition today.